Roti

(1942)

It is the story of an imaginary country, where the economy of the urban lifestyle is juxtaposed against the barter system economy of the tribal folks in the forest. Baalam( Sheikh Mukhtar) and Kinaari(Sitara Devi) play the lead roles in this movie, as the couple from the tribal clan. The city slickers are played by Chandramohan (Seth Lakshmi Das) and Akhtari Bai Faizabaadi, aka Begum Akhtar (Darling). The movie is a blistering attack on capitalism and its oppression of the poor masses.

The story is very interestingly; the small biplane carrying Seth Lakshmi Das and Darling crashes in the forest. They are rescued by Baalam, and there is a set of very interesting episodes about the first meeting of these two cultures. However, Seth Lakshmi Das, is very eager to get back to his business but is not finding any means of transport to get out of that forest. One night he steals two buffalos, Changu and Mangu, that belong to Baalam, and leaves the village on them, with the help of Kinaari and another local villager. In his na?ve and simplistic way, Baalam follows the rich man to the city to recover his animals, only to discover that he will now have to pay money to get back his animals. What follows is an intense confrontation between the two value systems and economies, with an idealistic ending. The tribal couple return to their forest with the animals, but the rich protagonist and his consort die a death of hunger and thirst in a desert, even as they are travelling in a car loaded with gold ingots.